Letters to the editor (Dec. 18, 2011)Ark. Valley Radiation Oncology Services I would like to say thanks and take the time to tell everyone what a wonderful service is present here in Pope County. In that, I am referring to the Arkansas Valley Radiation Oncology Services located at Saint Mary’s Hospital. Late this past summer, I received the dreaded diagnosis of breast cancer and as you can imagine, I had the usual fears and concerns. My oncologist in Little Rock recommended radia...

Letters to the editor (Dec. 11, 2011)Thankful for Christmas music I wanted to thank the young man who was playing Christmas music on his trombone in front of Kroger last Saturday to help raise money for the Salvation Army. It lifted my spirits and put a smile on my face. Gail Bottoms Russellville Thoughts on Arkansas Tech pool closure I am a 14-year-old eighth-grade girl who goes to Russellville Junior High School. I have been on the Boys and Girls Club Shark swim team for seven ...

Seasonal depression — not of GodWe recently celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas is coming up soon and after that we’ll celebrate New Years Day. Depression is a condition commonly experienced at this time of year. Often, it leads to heart attacks, strokes and even suicide. Much study has been put into this phenomenon to find out the reason. Every study has come up with the same answer. When people reach a certain age, they sometimes tend to loose contact with friends, family m...

City Hall impressive in debutFriday night was the official unveiling of the newly renovated Russellville City Hall, originally a Masonic Lodge completed in 1927. If you didn’t get an opportunity to make it to the open house, you missed seeing a harmonious union of historic structure and modern office space. Officials across two administrations encountered several hurdles as the project traversed boardroom to drawing board to groundbreaking, but to see it turned into such ...

Local pastor responds to Ky. church's policyThis past week you might have come across a troubling story out of Southeastern Kentucky. As the news story goes, a small Free Will Baptist Church passed a resolution disallowing interracial couples from participating in worship services. This resolution also prohibited interracial couples from becoming members in this local church. It has created a national stir, and rightly so. The initial vote passed by a margin of 9-6. This past Sunday the...

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Pastor Blaine RogersThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

I have good news and bad newsChristmas qualifies as a prime exception to the bad news that predominates. With this in mind, I set out to discover some positive features — only to find that these usually required qualification. For instance, violent crime dropped by 6 percent in 2010, climaxing a four year decline. Moreover, property crime was down for the eighth straight year, falling 2.7 percent. Even so, there were an estimated 1.2 million violent crimes in 2010 and app...

Respect bell ringersSince winter began in earnest this week, I’ve realized a couple of things. Of all the fat I have covering my body, my feet are the least insulated. The second realization? I need to invest in electric socks. I have on two pairs of regular socks as I’m writing this. The last couple of days, no matter if I was standing in front of or on a fire place, my feet would eventually get cold again in the car or under my desk. I went to the store for som...

Science lessonsWhen Greg asks me a science question, I do my best to answer him accurately. I’m not a big fan of the catch-all answer, “God did it.” I feel like it’s a cop-out answer for “I don’t know.” It’s like someone looking at a well designed building and asking, “How did they make this?” and someone else answering, “An architect did it.” Obviously. Thanks for your non-answer to my question. When Greg asks a science question I don’t know ... there are t...

Questions raised about RJHS merger
An experiment that started 10 years ago seems to be open for fresh discussion, although from the other side of the fence. The Russellville School District is exploring the option of bringing junior high athletics back together, eliminating the East and West programs in favor of a larger, unified program. It’s an effort, we assume, to make the district more competitive. Mostly anecdotal evidence was presented when the issue was discussed at a r...

Thank the Lord for your blessingsMeister Eckhart, a German theologian who preached and taught in the 13th century, once wrote, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.” It is the time of year we pause to say “thank you” to our Creator for the ways in which our lives are blessed. Those of us who attended the Russellville Area Ministerial Alliance Thanksgiving Service on Nov. 22 at First Baptist Church were reminded we should give th...

LoveLove There’s a certain order in which things are supposed to occur when it comes to daughters. At least, there’s supposed to be. The order is something like this: be born, play with dad, go to school, think boys are gross, drive, graduate. Then maybe — maybe — when she turns 21, she can begin to think about dating. I’m learning very quickly nothing about having a daughter is going the way I expected it to. I think anyone who has read this colu...

Power peopleA company in Great Britain recently installed special tiles which generate electricity when pedestrians walk on them. The generated electricity can be used to light up the pavers themselves using high-efficiency light emitting diodes (LEDs) or wired to remote lighting or even be fed into the electrical grid. An engineer by the name of Laurence Kemball-Cook came up with the idea and has established a company to exploit this technology. His comp...

Letters to the editor (Nov. 27, 2011)Be careful at intersection I was involved in an accident Nov. 12, at the railroad crossing at U.S. Highway 64 East and Ash Street in Pottsville. I am thankful to God that my grandson, his friend and I are safe. For first-time travelers at this crossing, this is a very unsafe crossing that needs to be brought to the attention of the public as this is an area that several use in traveling to games at the Pottsville gym. Individuals who came to m...

Giving thanks — for real!You know, it’s not normal, it’s not natural, for someone to say thanks. Contrary to popular opinion, the first Thanksgiving in what would become the United States was not celebrated by the pilgrims in 1621. The first recorded Thanksgiving took place in Jamestown, Va., more than 11 years earlier. The winter of 1610 in that colony had reduced the number of settlers from 409 to a mere 60. Without knowing when or how it might come, the survivors p...

Enjoy your Thanksgiving ... or ThursdayMany throughout the Arkansas River Valley will give thanks for all the food, family, fellowship or all of the above they will enjoy today. Others will have to settle and be thankful for their health, that they have a warm place to sleep or they have something to eat at all. For the rest of us, it’s simply Thursday. One day before Arkansas-LSU Friday, a day before another weekend. There’s been a lot of “Black Friday backlash” this year, after s...

Enjoying the thrill of the chase this deer season
Several of my hunting buddies have located whopper bucks that they’re zeroing in on and trying to get on the ground. Trail camera photos prove they’re there, and countless hours sitting in a treestand or groundblind have resulted in a big, fat goose egg. One day very soon I’m expecting a call from an excited hunter saying that the deed is done. For some reason, this hunting season seems to be filled with more excitement than those in years pas...

The house of autumnWhen I was younger, fall was my favorite season. I loved the wind, the deep orange and red leaves and their constant crunch under my feet. I even loved the early nightfall. But mostly it was the hypnotic scents of the changing season that drew me in. The smells of summer meals were always lost in the late-afternoon heat and the numbing chill of the air-conditioner, but the house in autumn held onto the smells of supper with diligence. Everywhe...

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Meredith Martin-MoatsThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

Greg’s birthdayThere are two things birthday parties are good for. First, they give us an excuse to come together and celebrate our arrival and continued existence in this world. Second, they do a fantastic job of making us realize how quickly we are becoming old and dead. And now that I have kids, not only do I get to remember these two things on my own birthday — I get to remember them on theirs. Oh, how very old and near to death it makes me feel to confe...

Did our lazy river run dry?It looks like Russellville may have been beaten to the punch by Clarksville after voters passed a one-cent sales tax to fund, among other things, an aquatic center. The center is slated to include an eight-lane Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool, water therapy pool and an outdoor water park that features a pool, water slides, a “lazy river” and kids area. We’ve been a proponent of some sort of recreational water feature for our city, an idea t...

High cost of baconEven though I like bacon, I quit buying it several weeks ago when the price of the brand I like went to almost $5 a pound. It was not that I could not afford it, it was the principle involved and besides, I could buy a great 97 percent fat-free slice of ham for a dollar a pound less. Now I know there are various market factors involved that determine the price, but the one that overrides all others is called supply and demand. Apparently a lot...